Thoughts and questions regarding just about everything while taking a daily stroll with my dog.

Friday, December 05, 2014

With Friends Like Us...

Some times the news is so incredible I have to pause to make sure I'm not reading some fictional thriller. Such was my reaction when I read that the Obama administration has had meetings to consider sanctions against Israel. Israel! The only friend we have in the Middle East which doesn't have Muslim underpinnings.

They've been as staunch an ally to us as we've been to them before this administration. What could they have done to make us think sanctions could be justified?

Bombing innocents in Gaza? No. Building houses in East Jerusalem. It was captured in the seven year war. However, it has been designated to be the capital of Palenstine when and if it becomes a state. Some would say by having declared themselves one is enough. But the Israelis continue to build, not helping the situation at all but then since the Hamas driven Palestinians are determined to drive Israel into the sea I can understand why they continue to poke them. Halting the building would give them the high ground.

Why don't they take it? I don't know. And that's the point. It would help if it were explained. I do know, however, how we would react if our former allies would move to place sanctions on the United States for our handling of racial discord. We'd scream and shout it's none of their business. Butt out!

I don't understand middle eastern mind sets. There is so much hatred and violence it seems to me to be hell on earth. But isn't it an issue to be settled and perhaps even negotiated among themselves without U.S. threats if they don't do things our way?

It's cockeyed to be looking at sanctions against Israel for building settlements while looking to lessen or even eliminate them against Iran who is building toward a nuclear bomb!

They say we have no foreign policy, whoever "they" are. In some ways they are wrong. We do. It's to micromanage everything according to the will of Obama regardless if it makes sense or not. We promise military aid and send meals ready to eat. We draw red lines and kick sand over them. We negotiate with an enemy regime while they build their bomb. We take 4 days to mount a rescue attempt by which time the captive has been moved.

And we wonder why we have no credibility among our enemies nor our one time friends in the world. We have a bunch of rank amateurs running the show and bolstering one another while the professionals stew, quit or are fired should they dare speak out.

Is there anything worse than having no friends? I think so. I think it's having no convictions.